Juneau where we are going?
We arrived in Juneau late last night. We booked a campsite in a park near the ferry terminal so we didn’t have to drive far. When we got there, someone was squatting in our spot. He apologized and moved quickly.
Today, we had a bunch of mini-adventures. We started with groceries. Fred Meyer in Juneau looks a lot like the one in Bellevue. The shelf stable inventory was great. Fresh foods were not as abundant. Shockingly, they only had Atlantic Salmon - coals to Newcastle anyone? Next, we scouted for places to kayak and camp near Mendenhall Glacier. We found a perfect launch spot for our kayak on Mendenhall Lake, but some of today’s rain showers were heavy. We plan to kayak tomorrow.
We stopped at Home Depot because the backup camera failed on the RV. This was the other camera - not the rear view camera that Greg repaired back in January. Greg thought it would be an easy repair, but he needed a ladder. Home Depot in Juneau doesn’t rent ladders but they gave us a few names of rental shops. Home Depot is next door to Costco. Several people have recommended that we stop at Costco. It is the smallest Costco that we have seen and probably the prettiest location for a Costco.
The Costco food court is so small that only one person works there! We decided to stop for lunch.
Once we finished our lunch at “the club”, we went to an equipment rental shop. They gave Greg a choice of ladders, and he fixed the backup camera in about 30 minutes. They wouldn’t take our money since they said the equipment didn’t leave their property. A handshake was all the payment they needed. Who knew there was still people like that?
Next, we went to the Mendenhall Glacier visitor center. We did the walk to the waterfall last time we were in Juneau, which we believe was in 2013. It was surprising to see how far the glacier has receded. Last time you could see the glacier from the waterfall. Now you just get a peek of it from the end of the Nugget Falls trail. The crowds were much heavier than we remembered. Might be our memory or it might be the larger cruise ships.
Our next mini-adventure was to purchase some salmon. It is salmon season, after all. We first tried a shop that specialized in salmon. We didn’t realize it was at the cruise terminal. There were 4 giant cruise ships in port, each with 3000-4000 passengers. Downtown Juneau was crowded like a big city. We managed to park the RV at the shop, but it was very tight. We entered the store and found out they were only selling frozen and canned fish. In the middle of salmon season! Not at all what we wanted. Next we found a hole-in-the-wall shop called Jerry’s Meats & Seafood. They had fresh Copper River sockeye salmon, various kinds of house-smoked salmon, and more. It was right around the corner from Home Depot and Costco - we could have gone there earlier. Oops. But we got our first Copper River salmon of the season!
Before dinner we decided to check out the tasting room for the Alaska Brewing Company. They have a location near the cruise ships, but they also have one at their brewery - once again, right around the corner from Costco and Home Depot. We were spending a lot of time in that neighborhood. They had about a dozen of their beers on tap; Greg got a sampler of 3, while Amy got an orange creamsicle soda that wasn’t too sweet.
Tonight we are staying at the Mendenhall Campground near the Mendenhall Lake. It’s a beautiful campground with lots of trees and water around. And we are just a few minutes away from the kayak launch for tomorrow.